A podcast all about Japanese cartoons and comics as discussed by three self-proclaimed experts in the world of anime and manga! Plus anime news / reviews, coverage of classic anime, hentai / yaoi, and much, much more. Updated every week. We hope.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

This week, it's all stuff we're feeling kind of "eh" about, which partially accounts for why it took so long for us to edit it. Daryl reviews all of Ergo Proxy, Gerald tackles Megazone 23 Part 2, and Clarissa's keeping it real [robot] with Hades Project Zeorymer.

It's 3:15 AM. Show notes will be added later. Honestly though, this picture is pretty much what all of our shows are about. Or at least, what they all SHOULD be about:Introduction (0:00 - 21:51)Even though we probably have way too many entries already, the keychain contest is still ongoing, so let us know what titles you've looked at which you wouldn't have done were it not for us. In the emails, we receive the ultimate nerd question: who are our favorite mecha designers? We can answer this with no problem. But what's some good anime to show to a 10 year-old child, preferably ones featuring cats? Uh...we got nothin'.

Promo: Anime Roundtable and Review (21:51 - 22:12)Radio TGO is a broadband online radio station primarily devoted to sports discussion. However, there is an anime show on there which is recorded live! They must certainly have it together more than we do, especially since they were able to make a promo lasting a mere 20 seconds! The problem is that the show airs on like, Sunday at 11:00 PM or something. Stupid live audio streams with their schedules! Fortunately, you can listen to all of the episodes at the website. Just be warned: there's a lot of fanservice/maid show stuff listed here, which suggests that they reviewed that stuff of their own free will.

Review: Ergo Proxy (22:12 - 48:27)Remember that time last year when EVERYONE wouldn't stop talking about this show as if it were the second coming? A lot of that buzz seemed to quickly die off within a month or two, but now that Geneon is releasing the DVDs, Daryl's decided to see what all the fuss was about. Deep Discount and DVD Pacific as always have the best prices, charging about $20 per disc; the first 3 discs are out so far which means that Volume 4 which comes out in May will contain all the MOST DANGEROUS episodes. What is the secret behind Ergo Proxy? Is Re-l Mayer's father Oscar Mayer, as we all so dearly hope? And is Daryl compassionate enough to not play voicemails when people leaving them ask that they not be played, thus assuring that people would still want to call in? This picture should answer anything not revealed in the review:Promo: Anime Roundtable (48:27 - 49:04)No, see, it's NOT the same podcast as the one we played the first promo for. That's the joke: that there are now enough anime podcasts out there such that there are multiple ones that share very, very similar names. However, this one is actually quite good. WARNING: CONTAINS 100% CANADIANS.

Review: Megazone 23 Part 2 (49:04 - 1:06:39)Gerald reviews the directorial debut of Ichiro Itano, and as noted in Show 50's review of DYRL, Itano's forte is as an animation director. As an overall director he ends up making "stellar" work such as Angel Cop and Violence Jack. This one's a lot different from Part 1, and you need only look at the character designs by Yasuomi "Doggy Style Pedophile" Umezu to figure that out. In Daryl's mind, the ending song to this is forever associated with Jeff Tatarek's Super Hyper Mega Bloody Ultra Cosmo Death Extravaganza X-23 since he saw that before he saw this. All of Megazone 23 is always included as part of those sales ADV has every other week or so, so you should be able to get this for about $6.

Promo: R5 Central (1:06:39 - 1:07:39)Mike informs us that over on the R5 Central Myspace page there's some TRUE TOKUSATSU FAN who's quite up in arms over the comments Daryl made in Episode 33 of R5 Central. We were going to reprint those comments here, but the Myspace code is so shoddy and the layout is so astonishly unreadable that trying to perform a Find on the page causes errors in the browser. However did that site get so massively popular anyway? People who use Livejournal (such as Clarissa) may be terrifying, but at least the underlying software is good.

Review: Hades Project Zeorymer (1:07:39 - 1:23:59)Clarissa tackles this 4-part mecha OAV that's over before you know it. Robot fans only for this one: regular, well-adjusted humans need not apply. It's two DVDs, but now that CPM's catalog titles are all so cheap, you can probably get both discs for about $12 in all. Man, Clarissa really does get the best emails and voicemails. We were thinking of just looping the part at the end Max Headroom style, but we wouldn't want to steal the spotlight from Don Imus.

Closing (1:23:59 - 1:27:51)This episode was recorded about three weeks ago, and we noted that we were all about to find ourselves with a decided lack of spare time due to work, school, conventions, and such. That is what's currently happening right now, which is the real reason for this episode coming out as late as it did. Next time won't be a typically structured show, since it'll consist of two fairly long segments that reasonable podcasters would have released as their own separate episodes. First, we're going to talk all about anime bootlegging since we've discovered that a lot of people don't realize that a lot of anime and anime-related merchandise aren't legitimate goods. We're an audio show, but hopefully we'll be able to give some pointers for how to identify this stuff. Second, we've put it off for far too long: we're going to talk about the journal Mechademia, as seen on our sidebar. This is a journal of academic writings pertaining to anime and the like, so we're not too well-equipped for the task. But we're going to do it anyway, and we're going to talk about pretty much every single paper in there. It won't be pretty.

Hey, gang, thanks for helping me get through another 90 minutes of work! Even an "ehh" episode is better than most everything else.

Regarding MGZ23 part 2, I think one of the reasons it scored so highly back in the VHS trading days is because (A) it was the sequel to something EVERYBODY had thoroughly digested, (B) it had such unique chara design, and (C) mainstream anime characters weren't allowed to have explicit (rather than implied) sex until that moment. Watching that scene in part 2 was like seeing the doors swing wiiiiide open.

As for the scene where the animation suddenly goes from frozen to fluid, that's simply explained by timing. We're so used to seeing the limited motion of most anime (which is dictated by the economies of production) that when something like this appears it practically flies off the screen at you. It was animated in SINGLE FRAMES, which means one drawing per frame of film--the most expensive way to animate anything and usually reserved for feature films.

In TV we reserve single frame animation for very rare occasions when nothing else will do, and when you ask for it the whole studio will go dead quiet and heads will turn slowly in your direction and veins will pop out on foreheads in the accounting department and you better drop to your knees and beg at that moment if you know what's good for you. It's that expensive. But it can be done if you're willing to make tradeoffs.

Now that CG is commonplace in anime TV shows, hand-drawn animation is having to keep up with it, so we see more single-framing than we used to. (Studio Bones is particularly good at it; just wait 'til you see later episodes of Eureka 7--zowie!) But because CG eliminates a lot of pencil mileage, it frees up the artists to put more time in. Galaxy Railways is a perfect example of how to achieve the right balance. The character animation is far better because the computer drew all the trains.

By the way, you can try a couple of experiments that will reveal how used to limited animation we've become. Take just about any show from the 80s or 90s (preferably on VHS, because it will work better than DVD) and play a few minutes in fast-forward. In most cases, you'll see people move at "normal" speed, especially in a fight scene. Then, take the same show (whatever it is) and watch it at standard speed with the sound off. It's amazing how much the soundtrack brings to the table.

I'm just catching up with the show (I have this odd fetish of proofing Oh My Goddess! while listening to it) and I got to the part in episode 50 about the theory that U.S. anime companies don't publish sales figures for fear of the data, good or bad, adversely affecting any future negotiations with their Japanese licensors. But it's very likely that in addition to the up-front money for the license, they are required to pay royalties on each copy sold back to Japan, so those licensors would then know in any case exactly how many sales were made. Trying to conceal this info, at least from the licensor, would *definitely* adversely affect future business. This is certainly true in the manga field, and it's important to remember that every time you buy the English version of a manga, through royalties, it puts money directly into the pocket of the creator.

Hey, thank you for playing my voicemail on the show. Just in case you don't see this comment, I will be sending a similar message to you by e-mail.

My younger sister's entrance drug was Cardcaptor Sakura, and it was in subtitles. In fact, all I really show her is subtitles. She doesn't care; she's read all six Harry Potter books in two months, words are words to be read for her. So, yeah. To answer your question, subtitles are great.

I have shown to her so far the following: CCS, Azumanga Daioh, Sailor Moon, she's seen me watching four episodes Fullmetal Alchemist, which really didn't phase her, and half an episode of Princess Tutu. Half mainly because she said "I wanna watch the next episode of Azumanga Daioh."

... As for me, well, I'm addicted to Tutu.

Full Moon is a great suggestion. Thank you. As for Ghibli, she is in love-Love-LOVE with Spirited Away, and I've been wanting to show her Kiki's Delivery Service fir a while now. Tokyo Mew Mew and CLAMP Campus Detectives are good suggestions for her, too (although I will have to track down Campus, and have to walk out of the room due to the furries for Mew Mew). I'll try to wiggle Sherlock Hound in, also a good suggestion.

Overall, thank you so much for my odd question you guys had a (hilarious) stuggle with. Great episode, and thank you again.

In English? You can't, not really. No official English language versions exist, and due to the massive amounts of text involved in a game, especially a strat-RPG like SRW, complete fan translations are basically impossible to find. GameFAQs will have guides and translations, but that's going to be for the menus and abilities, just enough to enable you to play the game.

I think a complete fan translation is being done for Alpha Gaiden, but it's not actually done and released. Hopefully they'll get through all of it, though, so we can actually understand the ridiculous conversations that occur across series casts. Daryl informs me that things like Amuro Ray and Misato from Eva flirting with each other (because their voice actors were Tuxedo Kamen and Sailor Moon) happen, which is totally awesome.

If you don't mind playing it in moon speak, then I'd recommend Alpha 3 or MX for PS2. You'll need a PS2 that can play Japanese games, of course. One for the DS, W, came out recently and that one has Golion (Lion Voltron) in it, so you might want to check that one out if you've got a DS.

I just finished episode #50--probably my favorite thus far. I think the reason some people might assume the A.W.O. krewe are older than they actually are is that you actually *know* about and *like* some anime from the '80s. I assumed you were my own age for that very reason.

The most important reason why revealing MEGAZONE takes place onboard a spaceship isn't much of a spoiler is that the story takes the view that the people there have real feelings, and have lives worth living as they are. I wasn't attracted to MZ23 for its SF elements, but from gradually realizing almost every place depicted in the film was some real street or neighborhood in Tokyo. I was 14 when it came out, and it made Tokyo seem the most romantic city in the world to be young and a teenager (not "to cosplay and buy stuff in Akihabara"). I *was* in love together with it all; my date and I drove to the junior prom with the MZ23 soundtrack in the tape deck. The year after that, I went to Tokyo for the first time, and hanging out in front of Studio ALTA meant more than shopping at Animate.

Maybe for similar reasons, I never had a problem with the ending of MZ23, and had no hunger for a sequel. First of all, I liked the way the typical anime cliche was reversed--the untrained kid with the superior weapon doesn't win; he gets his ass kicked by the adult with the worse weapon but better training. An adult in authority having the last word--that seemed more realistic, something I could relate to. But then, also, the kid having the afterword. At the end Shogo's beaten up--but he's alive, he's walking, he has his life, and he realizes he has Yui. He has two truths now, and he's not going to let the knowledge of one destroy his happiness in the other. In an odd way it's a more mature vision than THE MATRIX--MZ23 doesn't really buy the idea that the lies of others necessarily make our own lives a lie.

Several years ago, I was talking with Maria Kawamura at a party, and thanked her sincerely for her work in MEGAZONE TWO THREE. I said it was a shame that there was no anime today that expressed the mood of youth as MZ23 had. "There is," she replied, "it's called NEON GENESIS EVANGELION." You mentioned how Anno changed and the industry and fans changed; but remember they're all Japanese, and Japan too changed. In the 1980s the future belonged to Japan--practically the whole world believed it. I remember an adult back then who told me he couldn't see any entertainment value in anime, but if it helped prepare me for the future Japan-dominated world, he guessed there was some value to it. He wasn't trying to be funny.

I had a reaction similar to Tim Eldred's to MACROSS: DYRL, and at the time found it oddly depressing rather than uplifting. I must say your podcast made me a little ashamed, and to want to go back to see it again. I just related more personally to MZ23. Perhaps, with so much hope around in 1980s anime (a hope, still brilliant, that first saw itself in the mirror in THE WINGS OF HONNEAMISE), we could afford to pick and choose our visions. As you point out, in OTAKU NO VIDEO they're *looking forward* to DYRL while *waiting in line* to see NAUSICAA. Those two films within months of each other--anything seemed possible for anime then.

Anything still *is* possible--maybe the problem is that it's harder to see that. FLCL isn't coming out of an age of optimism; its characters are beaten before the story even starts, in a dead-end town instead of a bright big city. It's a Vespa now instead of a racing bike, and the girl is driving. The music is just as important, but there are no idols any more to be revealed. Even the man in black pursuing our hero senses the absurdity of it all. As Adult Swim said of FLCL, "This show will change your life." No one could mistake FLCL for being an 80s series, but in its own time it feels free, and is an achievement for that alone.

Man, Carl Horn is so damn cool. I'm spelling krewe as krewe from now on. Not that other, stupid non-Carl Horn spelling of it.

Mahlon: One of the shows your younger sister might like is St. Tail. It's pretty darn cute and while I can't remember if it had cats in it, the show does seem perfect for her age range. Tokyopop released a while back and if you don't mind buying used discs it can be had for a song.

Christina Ricci? Has she actually been cast already? A little dark for my taste. I'd go with Zooey Deschanel for being cuter and pluckier, as in "Almost Famous." Too bad we don't have River Phoenix any more, I always thought he would have been the perfect Speed. (No cheap drug jokes here, please.)

I am totally retarded and forgot to mention Kodomo no Omocha in our suggestions. That one's really long, so she might not watch all of it, but she should be able to get some good entertainment out of even a few episodes of it.

Also, I don't think we mentioned it, but even though technically I guess it's creepy loli material, I found Strawberry Marshmellow to be completely hilarious and adorable, and somehow it didn't strike me as being obviously and inappropriately sexualized. Oh god, the episode with the "no talking" rule alone nearly killed me.

Carl -

We're a krewe now? Awesome. I bet our float would totally kick ass.

Also, you make a great point about FLCL. I really want to rewatch it now. Sadly, I never bought it since the DVD release was rather expensive.

Just finished the latest podcast today: I love Clarissa's take on the observation about MZ23II that Yui and Shogo are young people getting together after 6 months apart so of course they fuck: "paging Legend of Galactic Heroes"! XD Bwahahahahah!

Yes, Reinhard would probably have been rather less of a prick and mellowed out if he could have gotten his freak on with Hilde several books earlier. And I'm sure we all would have preferred to see Siggy getting busy with Annerose as opposed to how that all worked out. Come to think of it, most of the people in the upper echelon of the Reich seem kinda screwed up sexually, except for Mittermeyer with his nice family life. Reuental is supposed to be a ladies' man, but one strongly senses he has no emotional connection with his lovers. Oberstein, let's not talk about Oberstein.

In the Alliance we seem to have more happily married main characters, or characters who care about their partners. Schenkopp and Poplan are also ladies' men, but you get a sense that they're having much more fun than Reuental regardless.

But this is a generalization of the fact that no one in the Empire seems to be enjoying themselves on any front, whether it be relationships or just relaxing. I've wished many times for a few side story episodes where we can see some of the Imperial characters in the off hours relaxing or just being human. I always wanted to see the story of Baroness Magdalena von Westphale's birthday party that Reinhard was planning to drag Sieg to by hook or by crook, for example. I want to see Reinhard pull some devious machinations to put his buddy in a situation where Maggie could try to put some moves on him.

Oh, they totally should have showed us that birthday party. I feel cheated that they didn't.

I think you're right that there's a big divide in how much fun the Alliance folks are having as opposed to the Empire. Reinhard's too obsessed, Reuental doesn't really like or respect women, Oberstein is...I don't know, a robot. Personally I don't think Yang and Frederica have much chemistry, and they've certainly never lit the room on fire, but I do get the sense that they at least like one another and are comfortable.

Gerald and I joke that sex in LoGH is like the British porn jokes from Family Guy, all overly proper and uneventful. Except for Poplan, who I totally love for being one of the few to actually engage in shenanigans. Even if he is a terrible manslut who sleeps with married women. :D

LoGH needs more shenanigans, damn it. I don't care what epic struggles are going on, these are guys (and a tiny number of women) cooped up in ships for decent amounts of time and alcohol is available. Come on.

Thinking about an anime with cats in it, a couple titles came to my mind, "Night on the Galactic Railroad" (released by CPM) and perhaps "Catnapped! The Movie" (released by Pioneer/Geneon). Worth a shot!

Hearing of Paranoid Android being used for Ergo Proxy's ED theme, it would be hard for me to get into it without thinking of the original music video featuring Magnus Carlsson's "Robin" characters.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8asQsfn82E

After hearing about Ergo Proxy, it sounds like something I'm glad to have missed out on anyway! Might have to check out those self-contained episodes though if ever.

Speaking of Adult Swim, they're bothering to show the FUNi Crayon Shin-chan dub again. It's on 12:30PM EST weekdays so far. Hopefully they'll get to run more than 6 episodes this time.

Glad you mentioned the Thundercats/Silverhawks in MG23II, wonder how many animators hated working on those toons when they decided to stick in that pinball machine within the first few minutes of the OAV? The designs could be hard for some to get used to after seeing the first film, though I must confuss I saw part two first myself thanks to that English teaching vid (wanted to believe Yui just stopped dying her hair blue by this point)! Perhaps I should stick up the Intersound dub on YouTube someday (the sex scene though might put me in a bad position though).

Still thinking of the tentacles piercing through the eyes in MG23II, god that animation was so weird for that scene you described (almost like it was drawn by a different team of people who do nothing but draw decapitations 24 drawings a second).

Took me a few hours just to comtemplate the nature of it. I'm glad I think I got all the kinks worked out now.

eopardon said... I'll have to get MEGAZONE 23 part 2 one of these days. I would't mind getting a copy with the Eng language learner's dub (or just the dub audio itself) just for laughs.

And just for you, I'll be ripping my VHS copy of said dub into my PC right now, and might get an MP3 of it uploaded tomorrow if possible!

Just being reminded of one line I also found amusing in the Intersound dub where Shogo (now called "Johnny Winters") takes off his shades during the opening battle with the police while saying "I won't be needing these anymore!"

Having thought about Yasuomi Umetsu's designs in MG23II, I couldn't help but be reminded he directed the "Presence" sequence in Robot Carnival (thankfully there wasn't any doggystyle going on in that). Looking through ANN, he seems to be mostly worked as either a character designer, key animator or animation director on most productions, probably for the best he did few main director works such as Kite.

But Walter, Paul von Oberstein is my number one role model whom I want to pattern myself after, even more so than Golgo 13 and Kenshiro. Only without the dog.

Oberstein is...I don't know, a robot.

If the Empire were a corporation, Paul von Oberstein would be the IT department. Granted, in the show his ultimate role ended up being more akin to Catbert the Evil Human Resources Director, but the fact of the matter is you need him to survive, whether you want to admit it or not.

Still, it's not as if the ladies [or anyone else] are especially interested in buying what J.C. P.V.O. is selling, and he's pushing 40 as it is. Personality and ethos are already set in stone, so if one can't understand the human heart by then, they never will. Not when most people have him beaten on experience by decades. On top of that, Oberstein's NOT a natural born genius like practically everyone else, and he knows it. What can you do, given such a hand?

You can work. You can sacrifice everything for the sake of working more than anyone else, with the result being that you're not QUITE a genius, but you're about one or two notches below them (see: Rock Lee). You can be more loyal than anyone else, and--taking a page from Revolver Ocelot or The Boss from Metal Gear Solid--ask for nothing in return, not even recognition for what you've done. As the Snake Eater lyrics say, "I give my life, not for honor but for you."

...but that's all you can do. And that's all you'd better do, if you know what's good for you.

Being brilliant on the level of Reinhard or Yang is beyond me. Being a total hardass like Schenkopp is also out of the question. If I had Rubinsky's savvy, I'd already be a multimillionaire.

Now that I've finally finished, as of 10 minutes ago, Planetes and Paranoia Agent, I need to hear some AWO speaking about two of my new favourite shows. And it needs to be Daryl who talks about Planetes, cause I think him to be the most likely to agree with my love of it.

Oh, yeah, I also wanted to say that I'm very, very happy to hear that youse will be doing anime reviews for Patrick's magazine. The advent of AWO was what excited me the most about the scene in 2006, and the coming of Otaku USA in 2007--so two great tastes will now taste great together.

Thanks for posting that Chris. I've never heard the entire thing from beginning to end.

By the way, does anyone have any information on this dub? Like, who commissioned it, who acted in it and such? I sort of assumed it was done in Hong Kong, but the voices in this don't sound like Hong Kong accents so I'm not sure.

It does have a very interesting line though:

"The people living on this space station, believe they are living on Earth and are enjoying the most comfortable eras of human history, the 80's"

Gerald said... Thanks for posting that Chris. I've never heard the entire thing from beginning to end.

Damn! (I can't be the only one)

By the way, does anyone have any information on this dub? Like, who commissioned it, who acted in it and such? I sort of assumed it was done in Hong Kong, but the voices in this don't sound like Hong Kong accents so I'm not sure.

This was supposibly done by the Intersound guys. Since I know I won't win medals for this infomation, the ending of my tape reveals this page of voice credits (did a few corrections since one was misspelled and another was shortened)...

"The people living on this space station, believe they are living on Earth and are enjoying the most comfortable eras of human history, the 80's"

That they said that right in the opening is pretty telling :P.

Well it's true! :-)

Also being reminded how amusing the pronunciation of "Bahamut" as "Bahamuto" was. That opening prologue started with a blank screen with the words "PRESENT FOR YOU" shown first (perhaps meant to scare those Japanese students who thought they were through with their year's worth of English learning as they'd have to stay around and watch this). The whole prologue itself was set to scenes taken from the ending footage seen in "Robotech the Movie". I would assume the narration was meant to remind people of what happened in the last film in case they might not've seen it or such (given the circumstances this film does like to start you in on the action without a backstory).

Incidentally, I did noticed a blurb on the front cover of an old anime magazine I just bothered to buy an issue of that mentiones an English dub to Megazone 23 Pt. 2 (Anime-Zine #2). Perhaps that might answers some more questions in case, though I bet someone else here'll step up to mention what that was.

OK, I was listening to Chris Meadows' interview with Carl Macek some hours back, and catched a bit where he brought up having worked on the Megazone 23 Pt. 2 dub while at Harmony Gold, it was a work-for-hire assigned to HG from the original Japanese studio apparently .

Just thought I'd let you guys know that Naoki Urasawa’s Monster has been nominated for the Eisner for Best Ongoing Series. It's up against: All Star Superman, Young Avengers, The Walking Dead, Captain America, and Daredevil.